"Though best known for the fictional cases of his creation Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle was involved in dozens of real life cases, solving many, and ... campaigning for justice in all. Stanford ... makes the case that the details of the many events Doyle was involved in, and caricatures of those involved, would provide Conan Doyle the fodder for many of the adventures of the violin-playing detective"--Publisher marketing
"When Arthur Conan Doyle was a lonely 7-year-old schoolboy at pre-prep Newington Academy in Edinburgh, a French émigré named Eugene Chantrelle was engaged there to teach Modern Languages. A few years later, Chantrelle would be hanged for the particularly grisly murder of his wife, marking the beginning of Conan Doyle's own association with some of the bloodiest crimes of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. This early link between actual crime and the greatest detective story writer of all time is one of many. Conan Doyle would also go on to play a leading role in the notorious case of the young Anglo-Indian lawyer George Edalji, convicted and imprisoned as the 'mad ripper' who supposedly prowled the fields around his Staffordshire home by night looking for animals to mutilate; and the equally chilling story of Oscar Slater and his alleged murder of an elderly spinster as she sat in her Glasgow home one winter's night in 1908, a crime with a spectacular denouement 18 years later. Using freshly available evidence and eyewitness testimony, Christopher Sandford follows these links and draws out the connections between Conan Doyle's literary output and factual criminality, a pattern that will enthrall and surprise the legions of Sherlock Holmes fans. In a sense, Conan Doyle wanted to be Sherlock--to be a man who could bring order and justice to a terrible world."--Dust jacket
Includes bibliographical references (pages 310-312) and index
The doll and its maker -- 'The darkness of Doyle's mind' -- Duet with an occasional chorus -- The creeping man -- 'You never forget the first nick of the razor' -- The lost world -- A case of identity -- 'As brutal and callous a crime as has ever been recorded' -- Is Conan Doyle mad? -- The final problem
